“You’re nothing like that. We can see already that what they wrote in these evaluations bears no resemblance to you.”
“Maybe it’s because of post-traumatic stress from my work in anti-terrorism?” I suggested, not sure what to say in this first conversation, without digressing into all the politics of my case.
“Post traumatic stress would rarely qualify for incompetence.” The prison psychologist shook his head decisively. “Otherwise most prisoners in the system would be exempt from prosecution.”
He looked at me hard. “How would you describe your attorney’s handling of this case?”
He nailed it. Still, I hesitated how much to admit about my attorney’s failings. If I told the prison psychologist, he would tell the Prosecutor. That could not be good.
“Sir, you raise an excellent point,” I replied, distinctly and slowly.
“That’s what I thought,” he nodded. “Sometimes attorneys get overwhelmed by complicated cases like yours. Especially public attorneys who tend to be overworked in their case loads. They see this as an easy way out.” He said, reading my reticence with a high degree of perceptiveness. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to accept it, you understand.”
I nodded. Inwardly, I groaned. Thanks to my idiot attorney, I was going to serve a prison sentence, without a plea bargain. Then I’d have to start back at square one and go to trial, with a new attorney who would require private financing. The only thing to recommend this strategy was if the case could go away after Carswell, and I could go on with my life without a conviction on my record. That was the trade off for four months in prison. It looked doubtful.
“Judge Mukasey said the evaluation must be completed by February 3rd, but it might finish sooner.” I pressed him. At least I had an exit date.
“Oh it won’t take that long.” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand why you’re here. I’ll have to make some calls about this.”
I understood. Anybody could see it was obscene to pretend I’m “incompetent—” though I understood the desire to bastardize me. Unforgivably, this psychiatric “diagnosis” lined up beautifully with false claims on Capitol Hill about intelligence failures before the War. It communicated what Congress wanted Americans to think— that “incompetent Assets” shouldered the blame for bad decision making. Assets failed to perform— not elected leaders. Since I was an Asset, I must be incompetent, too.
Psychiatry accommodated Washington’s agenda with unforgivably corrupt and unethical evaluations.
You had to hand it to Republican leaders at the Justice Department, however. This brute force attack was a masterful strategy to hide the truth about the Iraqi Peace Option and our advance warnings about 9/11. First, the false indictment gagged me from discussing what I had done before the War, which contradicted everything Americans had been told. Then the finding of incompetence killed my reputation as an Asset. Denying me a trial stopped me from gaining a forum in a court of law to expose the deceptions on Capitol Hill.
Finally, burying me in prison on Carswell Air Force Base outside of Fort Worth, Texas gave the White House free reign to rewrite the history books without challenges. Even if I was stoic enough to speak out afterwards, in the eyes of many, my reputation and credibility would be destroyed. Nobody would listen. I would be alone.
Oh yeah, I understood alright.
Why the rush, though? That nagged at me. Why, indeed?
When I arrived at Carswell, the prison was so over-crowded that a batch of us new arrivals, about eight of us, had to go to the punishment block, called the SHU, or solitary housing unit.
That’s where I got locked up for my first two weeks at Carswell. They had no other beds.
Actually solitary confinement would have significantly improved my living conditions. The cell was a standard eight by ten feet. Crammed into that tiny space, four inmates slept on two metal bunk beds. Our few possessions, including a change of prison clothes, got stored in small bins tucked under the bottom bunks. There was an open toilet in the corner without a lid or proper seat. Toilet paper got rationed between the four of us.
Whoever got the idea that federal prisons are country club havens for pampered inmates has obviously spent no time in either facility.
Sitting on the cold concrete floor, leaning against one bunk, I could stretch my legs and hit the other bunk with my feet. I got a top bunk. Most of the day I had to stay there— crouched on the bed 22 + hours daily.
Twice a week, each of us got to leave the cell for showers. Since it was the punishment block, we had to be handcuffed through a slot in the door any time we left our cell. Even in a medical emergency, inmates on the SHU had to get handcuffed before guards could enter a cell, such as when a cellmate went into diabetic shock early one morning at 4 a.m.
We looked forward to showers all week, so we could stand for 45 minutes, getting the cramps out of our legs. Inside the shower room, we had to strip for a visual inspection before we climbed into the shower. After the shower, we had to stay stripped for a visual inspection before dressing to return to our cell.
Often on shower days, guards allowed us to wait inside a small exercise room, with a large, bright mural painted on the wall. That mural probably saved the sanity of more inmates in the SHU than all the psychological counseling at Carswell combined.
Outside prison there’s a presumption that inmates have a basic right to one hour of exercise every day, even in a maximum security setting. In fact, all of us on the SHU got one hour outside every week or 10 days, locked inside a fenced yard with a basketball hoop, surrounded by a sky high fence. What passed for that one hour of recreation included the time necessary to shackle us all, and stand us in line. And the time to march us out to the prison yard. Just as we relaxed enough to enjoy the sunshine, it would be time to get handcuffed and marched back to the SHU. When all that time got accounted for, we probably spent 30 minutes outside about every 10 days.
Some of these women got locked up on the SHU for months at a time. Nobody at Carswell started off crazy. But I did meet several women at Carswell, who had been punished on the SHU for such long periods that I questioned if they might be broken. The pattern of their detention was sadistic, their offenses so minor as to warrant a more measured response. Clearly the guards wanted to damage their souls. I saw women whimpering and shattered. Trust me when I say the SHU could be a form of torture, especially without access to recreation or daylight.
The cell was extremely uncomfortable. The bunks stood away from the walls, far enough that inmates could not enjoy such small comfort as resting our backs against a hard wall surface.
We had thin foam rubber pads for a mattress and one thin blanket. Most of the women slept all day, so mostly the lights stayed off during the daytime. To stay occupied, I read trashy books from the library cart, or wrote letters home to friends. During the daylight, I would hunker under the one narrow window of our cell to catch the sunlight.
I confess that in those first days I felt too intimidated to lobby for keeping the lights on. My bunk mates had spent a few more nights at Carswell than me. I’d never spent the night in county lock-up, let alone federal prison.
My first week at Carswell, small talk with these women scared the hell out of me.
One pretty Latina inmate looked so young and innocent in our tiny SHU cell. What crime could she possibly have committed, I wondered? Ah, but appearances can be deceiving in prison. At 18 years old, she got hit with a 20 year sentence, which sounded dreadful. In late night conversations, she admitted hanging out with a Los Angeles street gang back home, driving around with guns and drugs in a car. And oh yeah, one of the guys got high on crack and started firing a gun. (Sounded like a drive-by shooting to me, but I didn’t push it.) Hey, that happens, right? Somebody smokes a little cocaine and starts acting crazy, shooting out of the backseat. Next thing, you’ve all got 20 years in prison! What a bummer!
Another inmate I liked very much had tattoos of two tears by one eye. Prison staff ke
pt stopping by our cell to ask about those tattoos. One of the wardens visited the SHU specially to see her. The guards really appreciated the artwork!
Very sweetly she explained that in prison, tattooed tears usually indicate how many persons an inmate has killed. And she had two tears! She winked at me with a big smile. Most prisoners only have one! Registering my immediate shock, my cellmate swore that she hadn’t murdered anybody! Girlfriend just liked the look!
Yeah, so did I.
And what are you in for? They leaned close to hear.
Oh, I’m in for treason! Because I opposed the Iraqi war. But really they think I ate a cheeseburger.
I wasn’t about to ask these women to keep the lights on, if they wanted to sleep. I would read in darkness rather than poke an argument in that cell. I imagined I was totally at their mercy. Once I got my bearings, I discovered I had nothing to fear from (most of) these ladies. Most of us wanted to “do our time” as quietly as possibly, and avoid the stress of unnecessary confrontations. Prison staff at Carswell would be far more dangerous to my future. My fellow inmates would help me through it, despite their own traumatic pain.
One man occupied a lot of my thoughts in that dark SHU cell, where prisoners mostly couldn’t tell if it was day or night.
That man was former Secretary of State Colin Powell, retired head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces. Three weeks before my prison surrender, Secretary Powell broadcast a major television interview with Barbara Walters on “20/20” on September 8, 2005.410 It aired at the exact moment the Justice Department was mobilizing to ship me off to Carswell without a trial or hearing.411
It was a most enlightening interview. Colin Powell complained vehemently to America’s First Lady of investigative journalism, Barbara Walters, that nobody at CIA tried to warn him off claims about Iraq’s illegal weapons stocks and manufacturing capability, as grossly exaggerated by Iraqi exiles. Powell angrily denounced the intelligence community for failing to speak up before his big speech at the United Nations, weeks before the War. He particularly criticized “lower-level personnel.”412
Powell said, and I quote: “There are some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn’t be relied upon.”
“And they didn’t speak up. That devastated me.”413
There was just one problem. It was all a lie.
Colin Powell had been warned explicitly—by me— identified as a primary Asset covering the Iraqi Embassy in New York, that he should question dubious claims about Iraq’s weapons capacity. Twice that January, 2003, I left papers at Powell’s home for his review— not difficult since he lived next door to my CIA handler, Dr. Richard Fuisz. I pleaded for him to support peace. And one week before his speech at the United Nations, on January 27, 2003, I respectfully urged him to consider the following:414
“What I have to say next will be more aggravating, but I have an obligation to advise you.”
“Given that Iraq has tried for two years to hold covert talks with the United States, with the promise of immediately resuming weapons inspections, there’s a very high probability that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. Forget what the Iraqi Opposition has told you. They’re famous liars, and most desperate to engage the United States in their protection. You can’t kill 1.7 million people and return home after a vicious bombing campaign to a great parade.”
“No, Iraq emphasized for more than a year before Kofi Annan got involved, that Baghdad would jump at the chance to prove to the world they had no weapons. At any moment Iraq was ready for those inspections to begin, and that says to me that they felt always they had nothing to hide. They simply insisted that without U.S. support for the plan, it would have no benefits or meaning for resolving tensions. Current events have proved that they were right.”
“Don’t deceive yourself, Mr. Secretary that War would have no costs. Believing your own rhetoric at this moment would be the most rash and incendiary mistake. Fighting street battles searching for Saddam would entail deadly risks for U.S. soldiers. No matter what Iraqis think of Saddam, the common people hate the U.S. for sanctions and bombings, and they would consider it traitorous to help you.”
“Under these circumstances, the brutality necessary to win this war would be consumption for the entire Arab world. It would produce a disastrous period of occupation. The Iraqis have fought occupations before, and they would strike back wherever possible.”
“Outside Iraq, Islamists would point to the failure of west-leaning leaderships to protect the Iraqi people. Fundamentalists would seize on that failure to force concessions for their strict cause. There would be a shift to the will of the people alright. No wonder Iran has been chuckling to itself. Iran and Osama—not the United States—would be the greatest victors in this war. The Arab Street would rush to their side.” (Yes, I called the rise of Iran, here and in other papers.)
“Please let me help you. You can still achieve a greater victory, Mr. Secretary, and maintain the force of America’s moral authority in the world’s eye. The objectives of the Bush Administration can be achieved without igniting terrorist revenge and international boycotts. Or destroying political alliances in the War on Terrorism. Or forcing massive deficit spending that will prolong the U.S. recession and scare the hell out of Wall Street and the Middle Class. Or starting a Holy War—which this would become.”
I knocked it out of the ballpark. My advice addressed every one of the complaints raised by Powell. What’s more, he received my second warning on January 27, one week before his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on February 5.
Far from valuing my efforts to provide quality intelligence feedback in the run up to War, Secretary Powell complained to the FBI that somebody so junior as myself dared to contact him!
He turned over those papers to the Justice Department, and I got indicted for approaching him and Andy Card!415
He forgot to mention that to Barbara Walters.
His fireworks of fury was a stage act, a spectacle of political theater. Whether you agree with the war or not, that was a selfish and ugly fraud.
Everybody presumed my “beloved” cousin, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card lodged the original complaint to the Feds. Actually it appears Colin Powell did the dirty deed, though Andy certainly cooperated with the FBI investigation. Powell began it, and John McCain seized on it as justification for my indictment, so I could be silenced while Senator McCain’s Presidential Commission issued some very silly findings about Pre-War Intelligence. But there’s no question that Powell played a key role as instigator. The FBI cited copies of my handwritten notes to Powell and the manila envelope delivering papers to his home, as evidence against me
At Carswell I dreamed of showing those papers to Barbara Walters! In fond moments, I imagined her reprimanding General Powell for lying to his fellow officers and American soldiers, and stripping some of those medals off his chest!
If I had my way, the man would face a court-martial.
As if that wasn’t awful enough, days after that “20/20” broadcast—on September 17— the Justice Department rubberstamped the order that I was “incompetent to stand trial.”416 That guaranteed Powell’s lie about Iraq would not face public challenge. I could never confront him or Andy Card as my accusers in open court, per my rights under the Constitution.
While Powell launched his “press junket” to rehabilitate his reputation, the feds booked me a bed at Carswell prison on a Texas military base, squashing my rights to a hearing on September 23, courtesy of the Patriot Act. While he washed the blood and dirt off his place in history, I faced punishment without trial, for daring to approach the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs with my analysis that Iraq did not possess WMDs.
That made Colin Powell “crook of the year” in my book. Truly it was Kafkaesque. My first two weeks in the SHU, I reeled from the shock of it. Every time I got strip searched and handcuffed in the SHU, I smoldered in rage as I thought a
bout Colin Powell and that mockery of an interview with Barbara Walters. That “20/20” interview rammed home that I was suffering so powerful men in Washington could rewrite their place in history, and sanitize their reputations.
Still, I had no choice but to adjust. In the SHU, I learned how Carswell fit into the schematics of the federal prison system.
It’s worth considering that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, one of every 100 Americans are housed in prison every day of the year.417 Indeed, the United States boasts the highest rate of incarceration in the world.
Officially called Carswell Federal Medical Center, it’s the only federal women’s prison in the United States that provides hospital and chronic health care for inmates suffering cancer, HIV/AIDS, heart disease, post-surgical rehabilitation, hepatitis and liver disease, and other chronic medical conditions.
Out of 1,400 prisoners, about half require medical care.418 The other inmates are completely healthy. That sounded reassuring, and I was hopeful. At first.
Unfortunately, Carswell has a scandalous reputation for providing horribly poor medical care to prisoners. While I was at Carswell, the Board of Hospital Certification kept threatening to revoke Carswell’s board approval, unless they cleaned up their act.
And let me tell you why:
A woman I met with diabetes got sent off for surgery— and got the wrong leg amputated.
Another older woman had heart surgery shortly before surrendering to Carswell. Prison staff refused to give her heart medications prescribed by her cardiologist for post-surgical recovery. Almost immediately she suffered a heart attack, and lay on the floor for several hours. Prison staff stepped over her body, while inmates had the respect to walk around her. But nobody tried to get her off the floor and into bed until she regained consciousness three to four hours later. At that point, she crawled off the floor, and hobbled to her bunk by herself, with no staff assistance.
EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq Page 41